GTR Review

Date: 9/12/2005

In spirit, GTR Racing is a throwback to the heyday of the sim game. It’s not
gentle on the casual gamer, sporting a brutally realistic physics model that
will make hardcore race fans drool while sending others to the corner of their
computer rooms to curl up in a fetal position and sob. If you’re the kind of
person that will give up on a racing game the umpteenth time you go careening
off of a turn or fishtailing into a wall, then you can stop reading now. This
game is not for you. If you’re still with me at this point, get ready for one of
the most realistic racers ever to sit on your hard drive. GTR is all about the
racing. There’s no cutscene hype, no career mode, no unlockable videos of the
developers talking about the game… just racing. Hardcore, sim racing.

GTR carries a license with FIA GT racing, a European league that races sports
cars from Vipers to Ferraris. The tracks in the game are drawn straight from
their real-world counterparts and consist of loops filled with an assortment of
tight turns to navigate – no NASCAR ovals here.

To its credit, GTR does not force you to go all out right from the start.
There is a mode of play that is only somewhat misleadingly titled “arcade” that
is designed to ease you into the game. This mode removes a lot of the options
available for fine-tuning your car, dumbs-down the competition, and eases up on
the physics model. There is even a limiter on your engine to keep your speed
down so you’re not tempted to go faster than you can handle. However, even in
this mode you shouldn’t expect Burnout or Need for Speed style arcade racing.
You still will need to control your speed and braking and approach turns with
respect. This mode is really designed to ease players into the game and assumes
that they will soon progress to the full simulation mode and not as a primary
mode of play for racing newbies. Casual gamers will still find that they will
spend a lot of time in the dirt on the edge of the track.

From there things can get as technical and correspondingly difficult as you
like. The game allows you to play with the settings on everything from the
engine to the suspension. You’re also given a full set of analytical tools based
on those available to real race teams. All of this room for modification does
have a serious impact on your car and its ability to contend for the flag
(assuming that you can keep it on the track) and the realism of the game’s
physics model can not be understated. As an acknowledgement that the driving can
be difficult, GTR provides an AI driving assist that will allow you to call in
the computer when you’re faced with a particularly difficult stretch of track.
If you’d prefer to just race, though, GTR smartly allows you to download pre-set
configurations so that you have the benefit of having someone who knows what
they’re doing configure your car.

When on the track you’ll find the game’s graphics to be a step below the
current generation of racing sims. They’re not bad by any means, just not quite
as polished. The cockpits do get special mention though as each is a replica of
the real-world version of the car that you’re racing. You can of course race
from a chase camera view, but if you’re sticking with the game at this point
then odds are that you’ll want the full sim experience. Damage is realistically
modeled and as you take a few hits you’ll find pieces of your car hanging off or
falling by the wayside. And yes, damage does affect the handling of your
vehicle.